Howard Stern: “I’m in as weird a place as Charlie Sheen”

Stern admits in the Rolling Stone interview that his main problem is caring too much.

“I sort of admire Charlie Sheen’s ability to say f**k you to the world. It’s a fascinating car wreck because, you know, how many people are in Hollywood dying for a hit television show?” Stern tells Rolling Stone. “I don’t know whether to give him a medal or to throw him in a loony bin. He doesn’t care, and that’s not me. Oh, I care! I care what my parents think, I care what you think, I care too much. In a way, I’m in as weird a place as Charlie Sheen. He doesn’t care at all and I care too much. Where’s the middle ground?”

However, unlike Charlie Sheen, Stern never tried to escape his work by indulging in “ladies of the night.”

“When that show is on, I feel like I’m calculating everything,” Stern says. “It’s maddening. Literally, after the show, I come back to my office, I do Transcendental Meditation and I pass out. My head is on fire.”

In the interview, he also recalls his first wife Alison, their 21-year marriage and their three daughters, and how their divorce affected him.

“My marriage ending blew my mind. I was upset that I failed and let down my family, my kids, my ex-wife. It was all very painful.”

He continues, “[Getting a divorce] felt like such a failure. It’s so complicated, and it’s hard for me even to figure out at this point what went wrong and how things that were so good could go so bad. It’s tough. I think I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to analyze that.”

Now married to Beth Ostrosky, he describes the union as “so easy,” but adds:

“I’m also aware that I could fuck things up very easily. I could start getting more into my work, and ignoring what’s important to Beth. I’m awfully narcissistic, and I have to keep that in check.”